Love's Tender Bond [Bonding Camp 6] (Siren Publishing Menage and More) by Christelle Mirin

Chapter One
     
    Missy Blue stopped dead in her tracks and watched him.
    Sam Rodgers, the constant caretaker of the compound, was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with mulch toward the back patio of the main house. He stopped, parking his load beside a flower bed, and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket.
    Missy stepped off the path and melted into the tree line. She didn’t want Sam to catch her watching him. Not this time, anyway. She placed the palm of her hand on the rough bark of the tree she was hiding behind and caught her bottom lips between her teeth.
    He stood so she had a view of his profile, and when he lifted the cloth to wipe the sweat from his brow, Missy’s heart skipped a beat. Time slowed down, it seemed, as Missy focused on the play of his muscles beneath the tan skin of his upper arm. Today he wore a white tank top and a pair of faded jeans that fit like they were tailored just for him. Sam didn’t dress this way often. He would never let any of the members of the firm see him in anything less than slacks and a polo.
    Unless, of course, he was participating in a bonding camp session.
    Thinking of him in that way—totally naked, his body glistening with the exertion it took to convey his passion—caused Missy to dig her fingernails into the bark of the tree. Pain flared beneath the nail of her index finger on her right hand. She jerked her hand away from the tree and sucked in a breath. There was a splinter shoved beneath her nail, which was already beginning to throb.
    “Dammit.” She shook her hand and stepped back onto the path. She would need tweezers to remove the chunk of wood from her nailbed. And the closest place to find a pair of tweezers was in the main house kitchen first-aid kit. That meant she was going to have to pass by Sam to get there.
    Missy looked at him again. He shoved the handkerchief into his back pocket and reached for a spade that was lying on top of the wheelbarrow full of mulch.
    Fantasy-time over. She had to get this sliver out before she got an infection. Shaking her head, she started down the path toward the house. It had been stupid of her to dig her nails into a tree like that. She couldn’t afford to injure her hands. Missy was the company masseuse. She had to have full use of every part of her body, especially her hands, to be able to do her job.
    Missy could smell him before she could hear his movements. Sam smelled like pine trees, musk, and a hint of hard-working man. She almost closed her eyes, savoring his scent.
    “Hey, Missy. How are you?” He turned toward her with a smile and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
    Missy’s heart did a little stutter then regained its rhythm. Every day it was getting harder to conceal her attraction to him. “I’m good.” She stopped beside him and raised her injured hand. “Except for somehow managing to ram a log underneath my fingernail.”
    Sam’s smile was replaced with a frown. He tossed the spade back into the wheelbarrow and wiped his palms on the front of his shirt before taking her hand in his and turning it palm up. “Let me see.” He moved closer to her, turning her hand for a better view. “Ouch,” he said with a wince. “We need to get that taken care of and fast.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and started toward the kitchen door, pulling her behind him.
    “Sam, really, I can take care of this myself.” She didn’t want him to think she was a wimp, but she couldn’t just jerk her arm out of his grasp, either.
    “Stop arguing.”
    “I’m not arguing.”
    “Yes, you are.” He opened the kitchen door and drew her into the coolness of the air-conditioned house. He closed the door behind her then turned her so they were face-to-face. He looked her straight in the eye. “And you know it won’t do you any good to fuss with me because I will always win.” A smile bloomed on his lips. His ocean-blue eyes sparkled with mirth, the corners of them crinkling with laugh